Photo: Intel

Intel, hard at work on its next wave of chips, has been revealed to be working on a laptop chip that will support 3D Blu-ray movies with out the need for any auxiliary hardware.

Sandy Bridge the key

Macworld reports that Nick Knupffer, an Intel spokesperson, announced that laptops that have processors built on the Sandy Bridge architecture will not only play 3D Blu-ray movies, but will also preserve battery life, in comparison to contemporary chips. What this means is that users will not need separate graphics processing just for viewing 3D content. In case it isn’t immediately clear to you, this is a puzzle piece in Intel’s strategy to attack the Nvidia 3D Vision tech, which, through first mover’s advantage, has become the de facto standard on 3D PC monitors.

In production soon

Sandy Bridge architecture chips are earmarked for production this year, still, with Intel announcing PCs with the tech could be hitting stores as before the middle of next year. What’s particularly unique about Sandy Bridge chips is that they represent the very first time Intel will ship integrated chips – a CPU and GPU on one chipset. While its present day Westmere has the CPU and GPU on one silicone base, it is still, in fact, two chips. (A remarkable aside is that Microsoft beat both Intel and AMD to market with integrated chips when it began shipping its Xbox 360 slim.)

Not all rosy

Photo: pitzyper! / Flickr

Even though the future brings with it promises of integrated chips, the Sandy Bridge architecture, 3D Blu-ray movies playback and interesting technology, business is not all rosy at Intel. The company has revised its third quarter forecast, downgrading it from an expected $11.2 billion (£7.2 billion) in revenues to $11 billion (about £7.1 billion) in revenues, due to the weak global economy and Intel’s massive exposure to it.

Intel chips go into over 80 per cent of all computers shipped worldwide and a host of servers, too, and its current generation of chips, the Intel Core i3, i5 and i7 can be found in all manners of computers worldwide.

Photo: Acer

Putting aside concerns about whether 3D in the home will work or not, we simply need to come to terms with the fact that it is here. And not only in the living room in the form of 3D TVs, but 3D monitors have begun emerging, too. Here’s a quick rundown on the 3D monitor technology available on the market, as well as how 3D monitor technology works.

How does it work?

All 3D monitor technology currently works with active shutter glasses technology. Effectively, you wear a pair of glasses that sync with a transmitter by your computer instructing each lens to open and close at different times rapidly. This creates the 3D effect.

NVidia 3D Vision tech is fast becoming ubiquitous. It includes the shutter glasses, appropriate software, and the transmitter tech ships with most 3D monitor technology and 3D monitors, with very few manufacturers expecting you purchase it independently.

Current monitor options

Though there are very few 3D monitors available on the market, some have risen to prominence already. The 23-inch Asus VG236H 3D monitor recently began shipping. It sports a 3D LCD monitor at a full HD resolution (1920×1080p), the 3D requisite 120Hz refresh rate and an action friendly 2ms response time.

Photo: Asus

Samsung has recently launched the 22-inch 3D Syncmaster, as have Acer, Viewsonic, LG and Zalman made forays into the market.

The problem

The problem that exists with 3D PC monitors is identical to the problem currently plaguing 3D TVs – there’s very little 3D content available. Whether it is movies or games or television broadcasts, there’s such a little 3D content on the market that it is very difficult recommending you make the purchase.

Nevertheless, in the coming weeks we’ll be giving all of these first wave 3D PC monitors the review treatment and let you know which of them is the best if you’re prepared to jump in already.